Many people picture a power purchase agreement as a 15-year mega-deal between a tech giant and a solar farm. In reality, 99% of UK PPAs look nothing like that. Power purchase agreements now sit behind a growing chunk of how the UK's electricity supply is sourced, and getting the price wrong could mean getting locked in well above the market rate for years.

Ed sits down with Rob Ogden, Founder and CEO of Renewable Exchange - one of the UK's largest PPA marketplaces - to unpack how PPAs are actually priced, why REGO certificate prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and what happens to Europe's ageing wind fleet as 20-year subsidies run out and thousands of turbines are pushed onto the merchant market.

They cover:

• Why the "blue-chip" corporate PPA is the exception in a UK market dominated by short-term utility contracts, and how subsidy schemes from NFFO to CfD shaped that split.
• How negative and volatile power prices are forcing generators and off-takers to rethink how PPAs are priced and structured.
• The lessons from Covid and the Ukraine energy crisis on why locking into a 15-year PPA carries real pricing risk.
• Why matching thousands of small renewable generators with energy suppliers is such a hard problem to solve, and what it takes to build pricing infrastructure that can handle PPA demand spiking overnight.
• Why REGO prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and the case for moving to 24/7 REGO matching.

Want to see what future power prices look like right now? Head to Modo Energy and ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst — sign-up's free and takes seconds.

Transcript available here.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Is Your "100% Green" Tariff Really Green?

01:15 What People Get Wrong About Power Purchase Agreements

03:45 UK Power Purchase Agreement Market Structure

04:57 UK Renewable Subsidy History: NFFO, RO, FiT and CfD

07:16 PPA Regret: Negative Pricing and Value Erosion

09:49 Long-Term PPA Risk Through Covid and the Ukraine Crisis

14:32 Hybrid PPA and Flexibility Contract Structures

17:46 Renewable Exchange Origin Story: The Aberdeenshire Wind Farmers

19:53 Platform Scaling Pains: Rebuilding Three Times

22:41 Renewable Exchange's Impact on Consumer Energy Costs

24:30 Co-Located Solar and Battery Revenue Streams

26:58 REGO Explained: Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin

32:16 The Case for 24/7 REGO Matching

36:27 Expanding to Germany: Legacy Wind Assets and Repowering

41:13 Contrarian Take: Ending Renewable Energy Subsidies

Many people picture a power purchase agreement as a 15-year mega-deal between a tech giant and a solar farm. In reality, 99% of UK PPAs look nothing like that. Power purchase agreements now sit behind a growing chunk of how the UK's electricity supply is sourced, and getting the price wrong could mean getting locked in well above the market rate for years.

Ed sits down with Rob Ogden, Founder and CEO of Renewable Exchange - one of the UK's largest PPA marketplaces - to unpack how PPAs are actually priced, why REGO certificate prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and what happens to Europe's ageing wind fleet as 20-year subsidies run out and thousands of turbines are pushed onto the merchant market.

They cover:

• Why the "blue-chip" corporate PPA is the exception in a UK market dominated by short-term utility contracts, and how subsidy schemes from NFFO to CfD shaped that split.
• How negative and volatile power prices are forcing generators and off-takers to rethink how PPAs are priced and structured.
• The lessons from Covid and the Ukraine energy crisis on why locking into a 15-year PPA carries real pricing risk.
• Why matching thousands of small renewable generators with energy suppliers is such a hard problem to solve, and what it takes to build pricing infrastructure that can handle PPA demand spiking overnight.
• Why REGO prices have swung from over £20 to just a few pence, and the case for moving to 24/7 REGO matching.

Want to see what future power prices look like right now? Head to Modo Energy and ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst — sign-up's free and takes seconds.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Is Your "100% Green" Tariff Really Green?

01:15 What People Get Wrong About Power Purchase Agreements

03:45 UK Power Purchase Agreement Market Structure

04:57 UK Renewable Subsidy History: NFFO, RO, FiT and CfD

07:16 PPA Regret: Negative Pricing and Value Erosion

09:49 Long-Term PPA Risk Through Covid and the Ukraine Crisis

14:32 Hybrid PPA and Flexibility Contract Structures

17:46 Renewable Exchange Origin Story: The Aberdeenshire Wind Farmers

19:53 Platform Scaling Pains: Rebuilding Three Times

22:41 Renewable Exchange's Impact on Consumer Energy Costs

24:30 Co-Located Solar and Battery Revenue Streams

26:58 REGO Explained: Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin

32:16 The Case for 24/7 REGO Matching

36:27 Expanding to Germany: Legacy Wind Assets and Repowering

41:13 Contrarian Take: Ending Renewable Energy Subsidies

How dangerous are battery storage fires, really? Despite the headlines, grid-scale battery fire failure rates have fallen 99% since 2018 - from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour to under 0.1. Even as global deployment scaled into the tens of gigawatt hours.

Most people still picture a whole site going up in flames. The engineering tells a very different story. Dan Sherlock-Burke, Director of Asset Management at Gore Street Capital, joins Ed Porter for a technical look at how battery fire safety actually works - from the Moss Landing fire that shaped public perception, to the data that can flag a failing module weeks before it fails. He explains what really happens minute-by-minute when a cell enters thermal runaway, why most BESS fires trace back to operations rather than faulty cells, and why fire suppression isn't always the safeguard it appears to be.

They cover:

- Battery fire propagation: why "let it burn" is increasingly viable, and how modern container design has made fires spreading across a site vanishingly rare

- BESS fire statistics: how EPRI's failure incident database shows a fall from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour in 2018 to under 0.1 today, a 99% reduction

- What causes battery fires: why only ~11% start with a faulty cell, while ~65% trace back to operations and integration

- LFP vs NMC battery chemistry: lower combustion temperatures, no self-supplied oxygen, and why lithium iron phosphate still isn't "inherently safe"

- Battery fire suppression: the contrarian case for why the wrong system can turn a fire into an explosion

Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, about battery storage safety and fire risk: Get started now.

Read the companion article here.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

0:00 - What everyone gets wrong about battery fires

2:42 - Battery fire propagation and site design

4:04 - Moss Landing fire: what actually happened

7:04 - LFP vs NMC battery chemistry explained

9:04 - Why lithium iron phosphate isn't "inherently safe"

13:08 - Using data to catch thermal runaway early

15:53 - EPRI's battery failure incident database

16:27 - How battery fire rates fell 99% since 2018

18:58 - What causes battery fires: the 11% vs 65% split

23:26 - Why most battery fires go unreported

28:01 - Inside thermal runaway, minute by minute

34:44 - Fire suppression and the explosion risk

39:09 - The Liverpool battery fire

41:11 - Rethinking battery fire suppression

How dangerous are battery storage fires, really? Despite the headlines, grid-scale battery fire failure rates have fallen 99% since 2018 - from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour to under 0.1. Even as global deployment scaled into the tens of gigawatt hours.

Most people still picture a whole site going up in flames. The engineering tells a very different story. Dan Sherlock-Burke, Director of Asset Management at Gore Street Capital, joins Ed Porter for a technical look at how battery fire safety actually works - from the Moss Landing fire that shaped public perception, to the data that can flag a failing module weeks before it fails. He explains what really happens minute-by-minute when a cell enters thermal runaway, why most BESS fires trace back to operations rather than faulty cells, and why fire suppression isn't always the safeguard it appears to be.

They cover:

- Battery fire propagation: why "let it burn" is increasingly viable, and how modern container design has made fires spreading across a site vanishingly rare

- BESS fire statistics: how EPRI's failure incident database shows a fall from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour in 2018 to under 0.1 today, a 99% reduction

- What causes battery fires: why only ~11% start with a faulty cell, while ~65% trace back to operations and integration

- LFP vs NMC battery chemistry: lower combustion temperatures, no self-supplied oxygen, and why lithium iron phosphate still isn't "inherently safe"

- Battery fire suppression: the contrarian case for why the wrong system can turn a fire into an explosion

Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, about battery storage safety and fire risk. Get started now.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

0:00 - What everyone gets wrong about battery fires

2:42 - Battery fire propagation and site design

4:04 - Moss Landing fire: what actually happened

7:04 - LFP vs NMC battery chemistry explained

9:04 - Why lithium iron phosphate isn't "inherently safe"

13:08 - Using data to catch thermal runaway early

15:53 - EPRI's battery failure incident database

16:27 - How battery fire rates fell 99% since 2018

18:58 - What causes battery fires: the 11% vs 65% split

23:26 - Why most battery fires go unreported

28:01 - Inside thermal runaway, minute by minute

34:44 - Fire suppression and the explosion risk

39:09 - The Liverpool battery fire

41:11 - Rethinking battery fire suppression

The atmosphere is unpredictable, and weather forecasts are far more reliable on some days than others. For anyone trading power or gas across Europe, knowing the difference is everything. It's what separates a confident call from an expensive guess.

In this conversation, Ed is joined by Matt Dobson - Head of European Energy Forecasting and Emma Patmore, Energy Meteorologist from MetDesk. They walk us through when they can trust what they're seeing and when they can't, and how they turn an uncertain forecast into something traders can actually act on. Along the way they cover wind droughts (or Dunkelflaute), a possible record El Niño, river levels that shut down power stations, and the rise of AI weather models

They cover

- How weather forecast accuracy isn't fixed: Why a day-ahead wind forecast lands within 10–15% around 80% of the time, but a shifted low-pressure track can swing output 30–40%.

- Dunkelflaute explained: How a blocking high-pressure system causes a wind drought, and why the longest recent German event ran nine days in early November 2024.

- El Niño and energy markets: Why a milder autumn means lower heating demand and gives traders reason to sell Q4 gas.

- AI weather models vs traditional models: why AI is pulling ahead at the 10–20 day horizon while traditional models stay sharper on fine-scale detail.

- Heatwaves and nuclear power: How 40°C heat in France and low river levels force nuclear curtailment and Rhine freight limits, echoing 2022.

Want to see how weather is moving European power and gas prices right now? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst: Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=metdesk&utm_content=ko_signup

Read the companion article here.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Chapters

0:00 - How weather forecasting drives energy markets

1:01 - What everyone gets wrong about weather forecasting

1:26 - Why forecast accuracy changes with the time horizon

4:03 - Saharan dust and solar power generation

6:02 - How weather varies over short distances

7:11 - Dunkelflaute explained: wind drought conditions

8:20 - German wind power and the nine-day wind drought

11:08 - Teleconnections: El Nino, ENSO and the MJO

12:54 - Record El Nino forecast and what it means

17:30 - Trading El Nino: gas, hydro and Alpine snow

17:56 - Why traders go short Q4 gas

18:58 - ECMWF data and ensemble forecasting

19:35 - How weather ensembles work: 151 members

21:39 - AI weather models vs traditional forecasting

23:25 - Are weather forecasts getting more accurate?

26:17 - Climate change and weather forecasting

27:50 - French heatwaves and nuclear power curtailment

31:10 - Low Rhine levels and freight restrictions

33:11 - The polar vortex and sudden stratospheric warming

36:15 - The Beast from the East explained

The atmosphere is unpredictable, and weather forecasts are far more reliable on some days than others. For anyone trading power or gas across Europe, knowing the difference is everything. It's what separates a confident call from an expensive guess.

In this conversation, Ed is joined by Matt Dobson - Head of European Energy Forecasting and Emma Patmore, Energy Meteorologist from MetDesk. They walk us through when they can trust what they're seeing and when they can't, and how they turn an uncertain forecast into something traders can actually act on. Along the way they cover wind droughts (or Dunkelflaute), a possible record El Niño, river levels that shut down power stations, and the rise of AI weather models

They cover

- How weather forecast accuracy isn't fixed: Why a day-ahead wind forecast lands within 10–15% around 80% of the time, but a shifted low-pressure track can swing output 30–40%.

- Dunkelflaute explained: How a blocking high-pressure system causes a wind drought, and why the longest recent German event ran nine days in early November 2024.

- El Niño and energy markets: Why a milder autumn means lower heating demand and gives traders reason to sell Q4 gas.

- AI weather models vs traditional models: why AI is pulling ahead at the 10–20 day horizon while traditional models stay sharper on fine-scale detail.

- Heatwaves and nuclear power: How 40°C heat in France and low river levels force nuclear curtailment and Rhine freight limits, echoing 2022.

Want to see how weather is moving European power and gas prices right now? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst: Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=metdesk&utm_content=ko_signup

Read the companion article here

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Chapters

0:00 - How weather forecasting drives energy markets

1:01 - What everyone gets wrong about weather forecasting

1:26 - Why forecast accuracy changes with the time horizon

4:03 - Saharan dust and solar power generation

6:02 - How weather varies over short distances

7:11 - Dunkelflaute explained: wind drought conditions

8:20 - German wind power and the nine-day wind drought

11:08 - Teleconnections: El Nino, ENSO and the MJO

12:54 - Record El Nino forecast and what it means

17:30 - Trading El Nino: gas, hydro and Alpine snow

17:56 - Why traders go short Q4 gas

18:58 - ECMWF data and ensemble forecasting

19:35 - How weather ensembles work: 151 members

21:39 - AI weather models vs traditional forecasting

23:25 - Are weather forecasts getting more accurate?

26:17 - Climate change and weather forecasting

27:50 - French heatwaves and nuclear power curtailment

31:10 - Low Rhine levels and freight restrictions

33:11 - The polar vortex and sudden stratospheric warming

36:15 - The Beast from the East explained

Two thirds of industrial energy demand is heat, not electricity, and most of it still runs on gas. Thermal storage converts cheap electricity into heat, stores it in concrete, and dispatches it when the factory needs it, undercutting the gas bill even though gas is cheaper per unit on average.

Alex Robertson, CEO of ENERGYNEST, joins Ed Porter to explain how a thermal battery works, why it competes with lithium-ion on cost, and why grid connections - not the technology - are the real constraint on industrial decarbonisation.

They cover:

- Why thermal storage functions like a battery on the energy markets but stores heat one-way in optimised concrete.

- The medium-temperature "frying, drying and applying" range (roughly 150 to 300C) that sits above heat pumps and below cement and steel.

- How decoupling thermal demand from the electricity price typically can cut the gas bill by around 50%.

- Why a 20-foot-container module stores about two megawatt hours, stacks three high, and loses only around 2% of capacity per day.

- Why a flexible, interruptible asset is exactly what congested grids need - and why Germany still lacks the flexible connection framework the Netherlands is rolling out.

Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, any question from this conversation: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=Alex Robertson&utm_content=ko_signup

Read the companion article: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/80ce6824-59a1-495b-9e94-0a38bdb9572e?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=Alex Robertson&utm_content=article_page

Modo Energy's solar and battery forecasts are live at modo.energy.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

0:11 - Industrial heat demand and the gas problem

1:13 - One thing everyone gets wrong about thermal storage

3:14 - How the concrete thermal battery works

4:08 - Medium temperature heat and the customer profile

6:56 - Why gas boilers still dominate German industry

7:52 - Using storage to beat the gas price

10:09 - Concrete versus lithium-ion: cost and supply chain

13:10 - Degradation and the 25-year thermal capacity

16:02 - Scaling up: module size and storage capacity

16:40 - Daily cycling and storage duration economics

19:50 - Seasonal variation and running gas in winter

23:33 - Cost, savings and the five-year payback

24:36 - The ideal customer and the grid connection test

25:46 - Data centres, demand queues and grid congestion

28:02 - Flexible connection agreements and the system design gap

30:10 - Grid utilisation versus grid buildout

33:34 - Heat as a service and unlocking investment

36:04 - A contrarian view on industrial decarbonisation

Music licensed via Artlist.

Two thirds of industrial energy demand is heat, not electricity, and most of it still runs on gas. Thermal storage converts cheap electricity into heat, stores it in concrete, and dispatches it when the factory needs it, undercutting the gas bill even though gas is cheaper per unit on average.

Alex Robertson, CEO of ENERGYNEST, joins Ed Porter to explain how a thermal battery works, why it competes with lithium-ion on cost, and why grid connections - not the technology - are the real constraint on industrial decarbonisation.

They cover:

- Why thermal storage functions like a battery on the energy markets but stores heat one-way in optimised concrete.

- The medium-temperature "frying, drying and applying" range (roughly 150 to 300C) that sits above heat pumps and below cement and steel.

- How decoupling thermal demand from the electricity price typically can cut the gas bill by around 50%.

- Why a 20-foot-container module stores about two megawatt hours, stacks three high, and loses only around 2% of capacity per day.

- Why a flexible, interruptible asset is exactly what congested grids need - and why Germany still lacks the flexible connection framework the Netherlands is rolling out.

Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, any question from this conversation: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=Alex Robertson&utm_content=ko_signup

Read the companion article: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/80ce6824-59a1-495b-9e94-0a38bdb9572e?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=Alex Robertson&utm_content=article_page

Modo Energy's solar and battery forecasts are live at modo.energy.

You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

0:11 - Industrial heat demand and the gas problem

1:13 - One thing everyone gets wrong about thermal storage

3:14 - How the concrete thermal battery works

4:08 - Medium temperature heat and the customer profile

6:56 - Why gas boilers still dominate German industry

7:52 - Using storage to beat the gas price

10:09 - Concrete versus lithium-ion: cost and supply chain

13:10 - Degradation and the 25-year thermal capacity

16:02 - Scaling up: module size and storage capacity

16:40 - Daily cycling and storage duration economics

19:50 - Seasonal variation and running gas in winter

23:33 - Cost, savings and the five-year payback

24:36 - The ideal customer and the grid connection test

25:46 - Data centres, demand queues and grid congestion

28:02 - Flexible connection agreements and the system design gap

30:10 - Grid utilisation versus grid buildout

33:34 - Heat as a service and unlocking investment

36:04 - A contrarian view on industrial decarbonisation

Music licensed via Artlist.

Germany's battery storage market is booming - but a saturation crunch is coming, and most investors aren't ready for it. The question is which revenue streams hold up, and which collapse the way they did in GB, Texas, and Australia.

Ed sits down with Till Stehr, German Research Analyst, and Cosima from the Advisory Services Team at Modo Energy, to map the real structural drivers, and risks, behind German BESS returns.

They cover:

• Why German battery saturation is closer than the market thinks - FCR is already saturated, with aFRR close behind.

• Why German battery revenues near €200,000/MW/year for a two-hour system are more about timing than structure.

• What makes Germany's intraday market the most liquid in Europe and the €1,000+/MWh spikes batteries feed on.

• How flexible connection agreements are quietly reshaping returns, from ramp rates to export caps.

• What German grid fees look like after the 2029 exemption and why dynamic fees are locational pricing through the back door.

Got a question about the German BESS market? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=till_cosima&utm_content=ko_signup

Chapters:

00:00 – An Introduction tGermany's Battery Storage Market

00:50 – What Investors Get Wrong About Germany

02:33 – Why Ancillary Services Saturate Fast

03:47 – German Battery Revenues: €200k per MW

05:24 – Structural Value: Solar and Intraday Trading

06:30 – Redispatch Costs and Locational Pricing

08:04 – FCR and aFRR Explained

09:37 – Battery Saturation and the Overbuilt Ratio

14:08 – Europe's Most Liquid Intraday Market

18:50 – Battery Interconnection: Friend or Foe?

21:52 – Negative Power Prices in Germany

25:36 – Flexible Connection Agreements Explained

32:19 – Battery Inertia and Grid-Forming Inverters

35:53 – German Grid Fees: What's Announced

40:37 – Contrarian Views: DSOs and Locational Pricing

Germany's battery storage market is booming - but a saturation crunch is coming, and most investors aren't ready for it. The question is which revenue streams hold up, and which collapse the way they did in GB, Texas, and Australia.

Ed sits down with Till Stehr, German Research Analyst, and Cosima from the Advisory Services Team at Modo Energy, to map the real structural drivers, and risks, behind German BESS returns.

They cover:

• Why German battery saturation is closer than the market thinks - FCR is already saturated, with aFRR close behind.

• Why German battery revenues near €200,000/MW/year for a two-hour system are more about timing than structure.

• What makes Germany's intraday market the most liquid in Europe and the €1,000+/MWh spikes batteries feed on.

• How flexible connection agreements are quietly reshaping returns, from ramp rates to export caps.

• What German grid fees look like after the 2029 exemption and why dynamic fees are locational pricing through the back door.

Got a question about the German BESS market? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=till_cosima&utm_content=ko_signup

Chapters:

00:00 – An Introduction tGermany's Battery Storage Market

00:50 – What Investors Get Wrong About Germany

02:33 – Why Ancillary Services Saturate Fast

03:47 – German Battery Revenues: €200k per MW

05:24 – Structural Value: Solar and Intraday Trading

06:30 – Redispatch Costs and Locational Pricing

08:04 – FCR and aFRR Explained

09:37 – Battery Saturation and the Overbuilt Ratio

14:08 – Europe's Most Liquid Intraday Market

18:50 – Battery Interconnection: Friend or Foe?

21:52 – Negative Power Prices in Germany

25:36 – Flexible Connection Agreements Explained

32:19 – Battery Inertia and Grid-Forming Inverters

35:53 – German Grid Fees: What's Announced

40:37 – Contrarian Views: DSOs and Locational Pricing